The new year begins quietly at Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah, with winter bringing a slower pace to the land and a deeper focus on preparation. This season lays the groundwork for the trails, habitats, and shared spaces our community relies on throughout the year.

As a new year brings fresh intentions to spend time outdoors, our staff, volunteers, and partners continue the year-round stewardship that keeps public trails, habitats, and shared spaces accessible for everyone.

Winter brings out the quiet details in the landscape, and common snowberry is one of the easiest to spot. Its bright white berries linger through the colder months, standing out along forest edges and open areas throughout the park.

These berries provide an important winter food source for birds and other wildlife, making snowberry a key part of the ecosystem when resources are limited. As you explore the park this season, look for snowberry growing along trail edges and in open woodland areas.

If you spot common snowberry on your winter walks, take a moment to notice how it supports wildlife during the colder months. Enjoy this native plant where it grows—observing without picking or disturbing helps protect wildlife and keeps our shared public spaces healthy for everyone.

Interested in native plants? Join us at the Native Plant Nursery and learn by doing.

Much of the work that keeps Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah healthy and accessible happens long before visitors see the results. Winter is a key season for planning, training, and preparation—ensuring stewardship projects are thoughtful, effective, and well-coordinated.

Behind the scenes, our team is developing project plans, training staff and volunteers, preparing the native plant nursery, and coordinating upcoming stewardship work for the months ahead. This unseen work is essential to successful, long-term stewardship—and it’s made possible through consistent community support.

Caring for Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah is a shared effort, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who supports this work—through donations, volunteering, partnerships, and advocacy.

Your support helps keep these public lands healthy, accessible, and welcoming for the entire community. We’re especially thankful for those who give year after year, sustaining the long-term stewardship these shared spaces require. Thank you for being part of the care and responsibility we share for Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah.

Stewardship of public land is year-round work, and continued community support is essential to sustain it. A gift today directly supports the care that keeps Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah healthy, accessible, and resilient through every season.

Your donation helps:

• Maintain safe, accessible trails and public recreation areas
  
• Advance riparian restoration and native plant stewardship
  
• Provide the tools, materials, training, and coordination needed for on-the-ground stewardship
  

Your support right now helps ensure this work continues at the scale our shared public lands require.

Internships are a core part of how Friends of Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah invests in the future of this place. Each season, our internship program provides hands-on, experiential learning for students across four focus areas: Habitat Restoration, Trails, Native Plant Nursery Production, and Communications & Outreach.

By working alongside staff, interns gain real-world skills, academic credit, and a deeper understanding of land stewardship—while contributing meaningful work that supports the care of our park today and for generations to come.